


Belonging

by orphan_account



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Slavery, Angst, BAMF!Eduardo, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, Enemies to Lovers, I will add more tags as I update, M/M, Past Character Death, Possessive Behavior, Power Dynamics, Romance, Slavery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 04:06:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8650726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Slavery AU. Mark’s hit slave rating system Slavemash allows for the best slaves to be matched with the social and financial elite. Eduardo, slave, secret abolitionist, and incognito leader of the internet-guided Railroad and Revolt of ‘09, works his way to the top- to spy on the system, to understand the system, and to gain his and everyone else’s liberation. He finds his way to an unsuspecting Mark’s house where he schemes to change the world.





	1. Chapter 1

“The marks on his shoulders, silly aren’t they? You’d think they look like wings,”

They’re burn marks, Eduardo thinks. It’s not really a fashion statement. _Fool._

His hands and knees hurt. He’s been kneeling on the floor for too long. He leans backwards a little, feels his joints protesting, sparks up his spine.

“Look how beaten he’s been. And he’s been verbally reprimanded so many times. He’s not nearly as meek as he seems, I swear by it.”

Eduardo worries sometimes that those burn marks will become too distinguishable- that one day they will follow his name, something dark and uncontrollable growing like shadows against the sun. And on those days he wishes that he can wear a thousand shawls around his shoulders and grow a new layer of skin.

His Master’s hand is on his shoulder now, cold. “He needs to be kept in control. And I can do that. He wouldn’t know what to do in any other household. ”

“Please let me do your job. This is not your decision. Remember, we all act with the general welfare in mind. Don’t let your affection for a slave stain your reputation,” the Censor replies curtly.

“Stand.” Eduardo stands and turns to face the two men. They are both shorter than he is, and uglier too. Twin paunches like pregnancies, sallow skin, and yellow eyes. Villains straight from childrens’ novels.

“That’ll do. He’s being upgraded from an seven to a nine. You have 24 hours to gather the paperwork before returning him to the next Slave House where he will be appropriately re-apportioned. On behalf of Slavemash I would like to thank you for your time,” the Censor turns and strides from the room, his eye undoubtedly already on the door.

His Master’s eyes crinkle with anger, but Eduardo is smiling.

Level up, he thinks to himself. I’m coming for you.

And then he winks at his old Master, just because he finally can.

He receives a disbelieving look.

\-------------

At the Slave House they are all forced to strip naked, thin white rags over their shoulders and ropes chafing their wrists. They look odd, Eduardo thinks, walking behind the others single-file. Like sailboats, with their white masts blowing in the breeze. Following the wind.

Hands together, eyes down.

They’re lead on to a stage, lights shining directly on their faces. It’s too bright to see anyone in the audience so Eduardo focuses his attention on the his fellow slaves instead. Anyone familiar? _Please be Dustin, please be Billy._

“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for coming...” he spares the auctioneer no attention. He’s heard it all before.

The other slaves are turned away and hunched in on themselves. The girl behind him is crying and he wonders if he can squeeze her hand without being noticed.

“...have worked their way up the system, grown and learned dramatically from their times as ones and twos....”

The ones and twos had spirit, Eduardo thinks wistfully, not like these lot. They knew who they were, what they stood for. The girl behind him hiccups between her tears and Eduardo wants to turn to comfort her, but he knows now is not the time to slip, not when he’s so close…

“. . . and we owe this innovation to the Slave Mash system, instituted just last February. Now sophisticated owners are guaranteed sophisticated slaves… “

No matter how many times he’s done this he can’t stop the dread that comes with the start of the auction. They go down the line and each slave bows their head lower and winces against when it’s their turn.

“Finally, we have Slave 4301, just recently made a 9…” Eduardo feels sick deep in his stomach, but now’s not the time to get cold feet. This is what you’ve been waiting for, he reminds himself. He steps forward and stares daringly at the audience.

Someone wolf whistles. There are a few jeers, a few yells.

He knows that masters like something different. Like to prove that they can tame something wild. He doesn’t cower like the others. He just wishes that the lights were dimmed and he could stare them directly in the eye.

“4301 was a Saverin, quite a distinguished and successful dynasty from Florida. He’s 20 now but has been in slavery since he was 8, and, as the state of his shoulders may demonstrate, has a steep learning curve.” The audience laughs politely but he ignores them because this is what he has been waiting for…

“His starting price is $500,000. Bidding may begin.”

Eduardo makes sure his back is ramrod straight, that he looks every inch the person he is. He cannot let himself be sold to someone meek- he needs importance, a government seat.

“550,000” Woman in back right.

“600,000” Man, closer to him.

“750,000” Same woman.

“900,000” Same man.

There is a pause. Eduardo’s goal was $900,000, but before he can feel relieved, the other bidder returned.

“One million!” She’s excited, eager to show off her wealth to her peers.

No one replies. Eduardo looks at the auctioneer who is blinking rapidly, staring at Eduardo with surprise on her face. No one with visible marks normally gets above $600,000, he knows.

“One million? Slave 4301 going for one million to the lady in red?”

Pause.

“Two million,” someone says in the back.

_What?_

Eduardo is being sold for four times the asking price, and this was completely unexpected, and before he can think he is being lead of the stage. They tie a rope around his hands.

Who would spend two million dollars on a slave?

\-------------

The buyer is not what Eduardo expected. He's young, a paradoxical mix of nervousness and boredom, with angular cheekbones ruling against uncontrollably curly hair. He looks the same age as, if not younger than, Eduardo.

Eduardo knows that he cannot look at his face for long without being punished, or worse, returned, but the buyer seems familiar. Something about the focus of his eyes, the slant of his eyebrows. He never heard a name.

“4301?” He asks, and Eduardo nods. He can feel his gaze on him for another moment before he takes Eduardo’s lead from the attendant. The attendant also tells him Eduardo’s verbal reprimand word- simply the word "pain." It varied a lot depending on past owners but Eduardo is glad that none of them were particularly creative.

The buyer leads him outside.

Eduardo doesn’t like this, never has. He can feel his heart beating faster in between his ribs, his brain telling him to _fight_ or _flee_ , to yell, to turn around, anything. He thinks that after doing this eight times he would hang of it but it never gets easier to give up control, to become what a stranger wants him to be.

“I’m not going to murder you, you know.” The buyer’s turned around, rolling his eyes at Eduardo from the length of his rope. “I’m really not the serial killer type.”

Eduardo doesn’t say anything but lowers his head and dutifully walks two steps behind.

\-------------

The car ride is not long. The buyer- Eduardo can’t bring himself to call someone so young Master just yet- gives him jeans and a Harvard sweatshirt, and, even though they’re both too small it feels good to have something to hide his scars behind.

The house is pale white, modern and clean. The architecture is oddly New England-esque and obtrusive in the midst of the mansions of luscious California. Puritanical in its shingled roof and lack of shutters. Despite the frigid preservation of the architecture, however, the rest is in shambles. The lawn is overgrown, all at different lengths and angles, like someone had started to mow before suddenly giving up.

He follows his buyer inside, Eduardo’s leash trailing on the ground. Eduardo sees no fence, but he doesn’t expect to. Only Masters he went to when he was a two or a three really bothered. And Eduardo knows exactly where in his right ankle, his neck, and his hip, they had buried tracking devices.

Inside there are glass walls and marble spiral staircases. There’s also a very noticable must in the air, dust coating all the furniture and even the floor.

“I spend most of my time at the Offices, but I come here occasionally to sleep and eat,” his Buyer says, not sparing him a glance. The Offices? _Please be someone important,_ Eduardo begs, _please. Make all of this worth it._ But his buyer looks more like a spoiled trust-fund baby teenager than any government figure.

He’s brought to what looks like a kitchen. Granite countertops and a tiled black floor under a diamond-coated chandelier.

“I’m assuming you can cook. You’ll take care of the house, meals, that sort of stuff.” The buyer continues stiltedly, like he is reading something memorized. “I won’t waste either of our time giving you a tour. You look like you’re going to faint and don’t because I really don’t have the time to deal with that. You can go anywhere in this house or the grounds but stay away from the computers because you’ll probably mess something up. You can work whenever you want as long as it gets done. My business card is on the fridge and you can text me when I’m at work if anything goes wrong but don’t interrupt me unless it’s really an emergency. And don’t go in the room upstairs, iimmediately to the right- I like my privacy.”

Housework would be a relatively light workload compared to what he’s had to do lately.

Mark pauses. “I don’t particularly bother with physical punishments. They’re too messy. I only use verbal reprimands. So do try not to mess up.” With that, he turns to leave. Eduardo shifts his weight back onto his heels, tired but brain buzzing, processing. Verbal reprimands hurt like hell but at least there will be no more visible marks.

“But wait, I didn’t get your name. You are..?” He asks, turning back and making eye contact. Eduardo immediately lowers his eyes.

“Eduardo. Eduardo Saverin.”

“Alright, Eduardo,” he would have given anything to look up and measure the Buyer’s expression but he didn’t dare.

“I’m sure you’ll be efficient. I’m Mark, by the way, Mark Zuckerberg.” He didn’t say it with any real meaning and when he turned and walked away, the sound of flip-flops against marble fading, Eduardo still hadn’t really processed it until-

Mark, Mark _Zuckerberg_? The CEO and founder of _Slavemash_?

Eduardo leaned against the wall and took a deep breath. He had gotten lucky indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris, Mark's moral compass, comes for dinner.

In Eduardo’s dreams Dustin comes to him, as sun-burned and tacky as Eduardo remembers. “Eduardo,” he says. “You can save me now. You’re going to save us all.”

Eduardo has difficulty sleeping, but it’s not because of the bed (which turns out to be a nice roll out with actual pillows and sheets in the corner of the laundry room, a vast improvement from before). He feels like he should be spending every second inside the CEO’s house working for the Movement and he imagines that he can feel records, data, information hovering just at the tips of his fingers.

In his dreams Dustin grins and thumps Eduardo’s back. “You’re going to do the Phoenix so proud. I was so glad when I learned that you would be the leader of the Resistance, I was so proud.”

Guilt and excitement turn out to be a terrible combination; soon his hands are trembling to help, to do something, to be active 

That attitude lasts less than a week. When he wakes up the first morning in an empty house the first thing he does is try the closest computer to investigate. Unfortunately Mark isn’t the type to store anything important on his PC and all he finds are old technical articles on the advantages of different metals and a few video games that look decades old.

He searches the rest of the House while he dusts. He knows there are definitely security cameras _somewhere_ but that doesn’t mean that they’re _everywhere_. Reading the computer meant breaking a rule but he had to do it; he’d rather be punished and know that he had taken advantage of such an easy opportunity than waste away in peace while so much information was so close. 

Luckily, the computer he picked was also in a corner behind the refrigerator and since the cameras were probably focused on the center of the room, he had managed to position himself so it looked like he was cleaning the inside of the fridge instead.

Mark turns out to be elusive and distant and Eduardo rarely sees him. He works late into the night and leaves early in the morning. Eduardo makes dinner for him but Mark told him not to bother with breakfast and lunch. Mark eats his dinner alone too, preferring the privacy of his own room.

It becomes an incredibly lonely existence. Eduardo is used to being yelled at, whipped, and put to work, but he is not used to being ignored. The last time he had a real conversation had to be when Mark told him his duties and even that was not very two-sided.

In his dreams Dustin starts to morph from his laughing and idyllic self into a phoenix. He flies at Eduardo and Eduardo looks down to see that his body has somehow turned to ashes, that when he lifts his arms in the air they dissolve shapeless into powder, and then his chest collapses under the pressure of his rib cage and he becomes bones and ashes that Dustin the Phoenix would fly over and around. He wakes from these dreams trembling.

The worst was when he heard gunshots in the background. 

_My name is Eduardo Saverin,_ he repeats to himself after waking up, trembling. _My father sold me into slavery when I was four years old. My name is Eduardo Saverin and I founded the Phoenix, the largest organized abolitionist movement in America. My name is Eduardo Saverin I am more powerful than anyone who has ever owned me. They can step on me and yell at me and humiliate me but they cannot take away what I have and what I am going to do._

\-------------

A week later Mark interrupts Eduardo’s routine when he is scrubbing the floor in the dining room.

“Tomorrow,” he begins, causing Eduardo to jump and almost knock over his bucket in the process. Mark rolls his eyes and begins again. “Tomorrow I’m having a friend over for dinner. At 5. You’ll need to make enough for both of us and serve us. I think he’d like pasta”

Eduardo nods, his eyes respectfully fixed on Mark’s shoes. Just because he hasn’t had to play the part of the dutifully slave for a week doesn’t mean that he can forget it.

“Of course, sir. I’m sure it will be fine.”

“You mean you _know_ that it will be fine,” Mark corrects. He turns and leaves just as suddenly as he came.

 _Do I hate him?_ The thought comes to him. Mark is his mortal enemy after all. He organized the pro-slavery snake of a movement, allowed it to become more efficient, grow more heads. But Eduardo doesn’t think that he does. Dislike, sure, but not exactly murder-worthy.

Maybe he should try harder.

\-------------

Eduardo has to wait long enough for the fridge to become plausibly dirty enough to clean before he feels safe using the computer again. When he does he drapes a sheet over the screen so that he can barely see the glowing words by squinting at them; from a camera they would be illegible.

He has to download Tor in order to access the website and then make his way through a storm of passwords and ID questions before he can get anywhere close to the messageboards. He remembers, briefly, a smaller hand on his shoulder, the sweet smell of perfume, and Christy's voice in his ear telling him about how important this was, how good freedom would feel.

He shakes himself. No use in dwelling in the past.

 ** _Theta2009:_** Hello. Is anybody there?

 ** _KCXX3:_** Hi Theta! Good to hear from you. We weren’t sure if you were OK. Are you in the same area as before?

 ** _Theta2009:_** Yes. Im not sure how strong this connection is so im not going to use proper nouns. But I am at the house of the CEO of the Site. I havent found out much but more soon.

 ** _KCXX3:_** Great. I’ll try and find out if there are any members near you. Stay safe until then.

 ** _Theta2009:_** Bye.

Eduardo had met KCXX3 or K.C. through Dustin and since she has become instrumental in the Resistance. Eduardo still struggles to talk to her sometimes even though he knows that she opposes slavery just as strongly as he does despite her status as a free woman.

He does feel reassured- as isolated as he could become here, he still has allies waiting. He skims through the latest entries- many of his friends are working up through the system as well, with Billy and Amelia both holding on to solid sevens.

He opens a new thread titled “Palo Alto” and changes his name from Theta. That was too conspicuous.

 ** _ChickenCameFirst00:_** Hi! Anyone else in Palo Alto?

No one responds but Eduardo still has time; Mark probably won’t come home a minute earlier than he has to. He finishes cleaning out the fridge (for real this time) and uses a broom to get the cobwebs of the ceiling. To his surprise he gets a reply half an hour later.

 ** _WrittenInInk:_** Hi. Do you belong to someone?

 ** _ChickenCameFirst00:_** only in the legal sense. do you?

 ** _WrittenInInk:_** In the legal sense.

 ** _ChickenCameFirst00:_** my name is Ed. I live in the website CEO’s house

He’s putting a lot of faith into this conversation.

 ** _WrittenInInk:_** Nice to meet you, Ed. I’m Eric and I live nearby. My “owner” speaks about yours a lot, I think that we are neighbors. His name is Divya.

 ** _ChickenCameFirst00:_** Good to know.

 ** _WrittenInInk:_** The problem is that my owner is not very docile, if you know what I mean. Do you think there’s a way to get out of this? I’m only asking because I don’t know how much longer I can survive this. It’s physical and I think sometimes life threatening.

Eduardo frowns. Most of the free people he knows who can help live in either Florida or Boston. He wonders if he can save Eric himself before dismissing it as ridiculous. If Mark was willing to pay so much money for him he would not want the social drop-out of losing him either. It would put Eric in more danger if Eduardo tried to escape.

 ** _ChickenCameFirst00:_** I’m very sorry to hear that Eric. I don’t know anyone on the top of my head but I’ll ask around. Try and stay safe the best u can.

There is no reply. Eduardo feels guilt again, and closes his eyes. What has he been doing this past week? Sleeping, cleaning and soaking in his own good luck. He hopes that someone important comes to dinner tonight- it will be his chance to redeem himself.

\-------------

The friend’s name is Chris and he is nothing like Eduardo expects.

Mark greets him at the door while Eduardo waits in the dining room. When Chris comes in he is laughing and his lemon-blonde hair falls across his face making him look very young.

“I can’t believe you _told_ him that to his face, _oh my god_ , and-”

Eduardo knows he only has a few seconds to look at his face so he quickly commits them to memory. Blue eyes, childish smile, slight figure, and then he’s the respectable slave again, eyes lowered.

“Oh!” Chris says, and he sounds slightly embarrassed. “Mark didn’t tell me to expect anyone. I’m sorry, I’m forgetting myself. My name is Chris, how are you?”

He walks over to shake Eduardo’s hand.

Eduardo imagines that he really does not look like a slave at the moment. Mark had given him free reign of the shower and the old unused hair products in there as well. He’d never admit it but he always found a steady sense of comfort from maintaining a smooth outwards presence. Last remains of the Saverign name. He was also given the largest of the seemingly unlimited Harvard-sweatshirt-and-corduroy-pant-collection.

There’s an awkward moment when Eduardo doesn’t take his hand, just stares at the floor.

His first owners, the Winklevii, had long since trained him that shaking hands was a sign of equality. And Eduardo didn’t have that equality.

“He’s-” Mark begins, but Chris takes a step back, and Eduardo thinks that he’s starting to understand on his own. “He’s, well-”

“He’s _what_ , Mark?” Chris’ voice breaks a little, strangled, startled. Eduard’s eyebrows jerk up for a moment- freepeople normally don’t act like this.

There’s a pause and Eduardo hates himself, hates this institution, hates that Chris is looking at him right now and probably assuring feeling confident in contrast with Eduardo’s very presence, and Eduardo wants to pull back his arm, form his hand in a fist, and fist and punch someone, Mark maybe, and Chris maybe, but more than any of that he wants to turn around and _flee._

But he can’t afford to lose control now. 

“He’s Eduardo,” Mark is saying, stiltedly. “Anyway, like I told you, he was __completely_ _ oblivious. I had to literally-”

“Mark,” Chris says again and his feet go out of Eduardo’s line of sight. “Mark, can I talk to you? Privately.”

“Whatever you want to say, you can say it here.” 

But when Chris says “Mark, this is absolutely ridiculous.” Eduardo’s surprise is boundless.

And then Mark does send him away.

\-------------

Eduardo listens to the conversation with his ear pressed to the doorknob, feeling childish in his hunched shoulders and trembling hands.

“I thought you were past this!” Chris is saying. “It’s one thing to get slaves for the company, that’s financial, sure, but for yourself? Come on, Mark, you’re better than this.”

“You run the HR department of Slavemash, the largest pro-slavery company in the _world_. It seems just a little hypocritical, Chris, to turn around and point fingers at me. Maybe you should try and practice what you preach” Mark’s voice was quiet, calm. 

There's a long pause and Eduardo can hear footsteps thudding against the hardwood floor. He imagines Chris pacing back and forth in front of the large dining table. 

"Alright, Mark," Chris’s voice becomes soft as well. He sounds defeated. "I guess you do have a point. But can't he eat with us at least? Right now he's a person and not a number on a page." 

"Practice what you preach Chris," Mark repeats. But there’s only a short pause before he continues gently. "That would only confuse him. But I'm sure he would like to serve us the meal that he prepared." 

That's his cue. With a long-earned practice Eduardo makes it to the other side of the kitchen trying to make as little sound as possible. He opens a cabinet randomly and tries to look busy.

"Eduardo," Mark says from behind him. "Forget about what just happened. Chris is uninformed. We’re ready for the food.” Mark leaves and shuts the door behind him again.

Eduardo resists the urge to go back to listening at the doorknob and gets the pasta instead.

\-------------

The entire meal is very awkward and stilted. 

“Wardo, is it?” Chris asks softly, like he’s speaking to a child. Eduardo smiles mutely and nods but doesn’t dare to correct the mispronounciation. Chris lapses into silence after that. 

Throughout the meal Eduardo notices that Chris is trying to catch his eye. He wants to do the same but with Mark so close it could be risky. So he stares at his hands without blinking and only murmurs occasional “would you like me to take that?”s.

Chris is achingly, painfully, polite. 

Chris and Mark don’t talk about anything, really. Mark manages to maintain some sort of monologue about coding throughout the entire dinner. The syllables come out sounding distant and robotic, empty in contrast with the story itself.

After dinner Mark and Chris move to the couches and watch TV while Eduardo does the dishes. He tries to listen to the conversation but it’s hard; he’s too close to be discrete but too far away to hear their voices under the chatter of the TV.

What he does notice is when Mark’s phone rings with a text and he excuses himself to his study. Eduardo waits until the footsteps have receded completely and the door shuts (his fingers trembling, dishes clashing) before striding to the lounge and sitting across from Chris. He leans forward, hands on his knees.

“Listen, Chris, you seem like a decent person,” he begins. Chris’s look of shock is unparalleled. “And I know that you don’t think slavery is justifiable, that anyone’s personhood can really be taken away from them. I’m a real person, not a statistic. And you seem like a logical person.” He pauses but when Chris doesn’t comment on his eavesdropping or interject, keeps going- he doesn’t know how much time he will have before Mark gets back. “So I’m going to tell you my story, quickly, and try and convince you to join the Resistance.”

He can hear his heart beating in his own ears but he maintains eye contact with Chris. He reminds himself that revolution is built on risk-taking, and leans forward.

“From ages 9 to 17 I worked for one family, the Winklevii. This was before Slavemash was used. They were very traditional and strict and they had another slave called Christy who was three or four years my senior. She was planning to escape and for whatever reason she took pity on me and decided to help me escape too. I was supposed to be the distraction but I failed and they caught us. So they whipped me and burned me and then they killed her.”

Chris’s face whitens and Eduardo finds himself breathing more quickly.

“There was never any investigation. Slavemash was my opportunity to leave them, sure, but now I think about the others who are forced into their household. Nobody cares that Christy was murdered because nobody understands that Christy was every inch as human as they are. But I think you do, Chris. You seem better than this.”

“But what do you want me to do?” It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking but Eduardo thinks he might have won a small victory. Chris’ eyes are very wide and his face tense.

“Whatever you can. We need to make this stop. And my name is _Eduardo_ by the way.” He hears footsteps down the stairs and without thinking walks back to the kitchen, turns on the sink again. Hopes that Mark won’t notice that he is out of breath.

There’s silence, Eduardo cleans a wine glass, and hears Mark re-enter the room. “Apparently the interns are so moronic this year that they can’t keep the site up for two hours without me,” Mark says. Then: “You look like I just killed your dog. I thought you hated the interns as much as I did.”

“Yes, Mark, no, that does sound strange. Listen Sean just texted me- I forgot that I have to pick him up from the station, we share a car. Tonight was very nice. We should do this more.”

Out of the corner of Eduardo’s eye he can see Chris standing and moving towards the door.

Their voices echo, muted, from the hallway. He waits until he can hear the front door slam shut before he takes another breath.

But then Mark’s footsteps are back, coming towards the kitchen.

Eduardo doesn’t acknowledge him and Mark doesn’t say anything. He’s finished doing the dishes so he wipes down the countertop even though he had just done so before dinner. He can feel rather than see Mark’s presence: leaning against the doorway, watching him.

“What did you think of him?” Mark finally asks. Eduardo freezes and turns around to face him. Mark’s eyes are slightly squinted and his brows set. He looks curious. 

“I’m sure that I don’t have an opinion, sir,” He replies. He moves to get the broom but Mark stops him with a hand inches from his chest.

“No, I won’t get angry. Tell me honestly: what did you think of him?”

Eduardo chose his words carefully. “He seems to be part of a different generation,” he finally decides on. Mark’s expression doesn’t change but he keeps staring at him. 

Uncomfortable, Eduardo waits another moment before going to get the broom. This time Mark doesn’t stop him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reiteration of my last note:
> 
> I started writing and planning this fic back in January and then took a (long) hiatus. I've written the first five chapters, but now I'm at a crossroads: should I continue? I'll post the first 4 chapters, but please kudos/follow/review if you think it's worth continuing! As cheap a ploy as this sounds, I need some sort of metric to measure my sanity.
> 
>  
> 
> 2 more chapters to go!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eduardo "runs away" and pays the price.

After another restless night Eduardo checks the message boards the next day. To hell with cleaning the fridge, Eric’s safety takes precedence. 

Eric hadn’t replied. KC had, saying that she hadn’t been able to find anyone in the network in the vicinity. “We need an easier way to organize who lives where and who is part of the Resistance,” she had messaged him.

(Dustin would have known how to do that, he thinks, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. But Dustin is determined to stay only in his dreams.) 

What if Eric’s Master had found out he was using the computer and hurt him? Or worse, killed him? Eduardo couldn’t live with that.

He opens up a new browser and searches for a Divya living near Mark Zuckerberg in Palo Alto. He finds one living a few houses down- according to Maps it would hardly be a two minute walk. He could get there, check on Eric, and be back, long before Mark came home.

Chris had thought that he looked like a freeman. Eduardo hopes that the neighbours will think that too.

So, trying not to overthink it, he leaves. He uses the back door to avoid possible security cameras and heads around the house, down the sidewalk. He tries to walk like a free person would. Shoulders back, head high, back straight- his tutors had been drilling this into his head ever since he was a baby, and it turns out to be a lot easier than walking like a slave.

He had forgotten how blue the sky could be. The air is slightly chilly, a chilly that causes him to hunch into his sweatshirt, feel tiny and unimportant, but also very alive.

He doesn’t see anyone on the way there. The road is sparsely populated with other large houses, all looking empty and serene. He makes it to Divya’s house - a blue one with wide white shutters- quickly and sneaks around to find the back entrance. When he does he knocks and it takes a few moments until a girl with long brown hair and bags under her eyes opens the door.

“How can I help you?” She asks quietly.

Eduardo pauses, confused. Perhaps this was another slave? 

“Hi. I’m looking for a slave who I believe resides here. His name is Eric. I’m considering buying him from Divya-”

He’s cut off when the girl pulls him inside by the arm and slams the door shut behind him. She stares at him, wide-eyed, then drags him down a hallway and further into the house.

“Who are you?” She asks, her words running together. “Are you with the Phoenix?”

That stops him short. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m Eric. Well Eric _a_. Eric was a code name just in case, well, you know. Are you Ed?”

Relief is warmth and his fingers stop trembling from the cold. 

“Eduardo. I guess I should have expected that.”

She leads him to a dining table and offers him a seat. “Aren’t you a slave too? Wait, how long can you stay? Divya won’t be back till late but I’m worried about the cameras…”

“I should leave as soon as possible. I had to sneak away while my owner was gone but I got worried when you didn’t reply. I have a friend at the Phoenix who checked their database for people living nearby who could help but she came up with nothing.”

“Oh,” she wraps an arm around herself and leans towards the table, staring away from him. “Alright, then. Thank you for trying and coming all the way here.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m giving up,” Eduardo says. She looks at him, doesn’t reply. “The Phoenix just needs better organization, that’s all. I’m- they’re working on something. We’ll get you of here. It just might take a little longer.”

She’s staring into space again.

“Do you think you’ll be able to endure a few weeks? What level are you?”

“A nine point five. I thought if I got high enough in the system I would get somewhere nicer. I’ll be fine. Divya’s aggressive but too drunk to be a real threat.”

She pauses, then her eyes light up. “So you think the Phoenix actually has a chance against the government?” She sounds like a child telling horror stories, leaning in, but Eduardo has a lump in his throat. “I heard that they were behind the Railroad Revolt of ‘09. Apparently they got three _hundred_ slaves freed and they made it all the way to Brazil.”

“Half of them were recaptured,” Eduardo replied. He had been young and stupid then, barely 18 and arrogant as ever. The Phoenix was young then too, just two thousand members desperate to be noticed, to prove that they could make a difference. Most of the slaves recaptured had been publicly and harshly whipped.

“Yeah, but Florida to Brazil, Eduardo! Brazil!” She leans in again, hushed tone again. “I heard that Theta- you know, the leader- has burns that are shaped like wings. Apparently his Master caught him trying to run away and threatened to burn him but Theta just smiled. And he didn’t make a sound. And the Master didn’t mean them to, but the burns on his back became shaped like _wings_.”

Eduardo felt the bizarre urge to laugh. That wasn’t even close to the truth- right after Christy and he had been recaptured the Winklevii forced her to watch while they laid burning pieces of metal across his back. And he most definitely had cried, screamed and begged even though he knew that his cries were hurting Christy as much as the fire was hurting him.

“Right,” he says. He stands up, uncomfortable. “I should go, but try and keep in touch. Do you have access to a computer?”

“Yes,” she replies. “I’m sorry I haven’t been on lately. I’ll get better at that. Thanks for coming.”

“Of course. Goodbye Erica.” He turns and leaves the way he came.

He had just made it into the house through the back entrance when he heard a car pull into the driveway.

Mark is home early.

\-------------

Eduardo moves to the living room and tries to think of something to do but it turns out it doesn’t matter; Mark calls him to the front of the house as soon as he gets inside. He sounds angry and Eduardo’s heart skips a beat.

 _Please don’t send me back, don’t send me back, please_. There must be more cameras than he had originally thought. What if Mark tracked him? He would see the line clearly going to Divya’s house and who knew what sort of trouble Erica would get in. _Stupid._

Mark is pacing when Eduardo finds him. “Eduardo,” he says and it’s hard to read his tone. “I thought I told you not to leave the house.”

“I’m sorry Master,” Eduardo says, but he is thinking _run run run run run_. “I just went for a walk around the neighbourhood. I wanted to exercise.” 

Mark stops and turns to study his face again. “I would have checked the tracking devices but I hadn’t bothered to configure them to my computer. Maybe that was naive of me.”

He straightens his shoulders, seems to brace himself. “I did tell you the rules, and you did break them. And I do have a treadmill. So really, you should have expected this.” 

And then he looks sort of curious and that sickens Eduardo most of all, the curiosity, and Mark says “Pain,” the magic word, and Eduardo’s limbs suddenly feel like they’re being cut into a million pieces, like every cell in his body is suddenly being forced away from every other cell, like his very flesh is trying to force it’s way out through his skin, skin ripping, and he tastes entropy, his body trying to lose its own shape, like screaming nonvocally. 

It goes on forever. It goes on for twenty-five seconds. Then he’s lying on the floor, sweat and tears slathered all over his face and taking deep breaths, feeling a new sort of ache settle in his bones, behind his knees and next to his neck. He sees feet approaching, Mark kneeling down, a hand is on his face. That hand is shaking. 

It is shaking in shock, right? It must be. But if it is then why does he hear that word come from that mouth again? That word, “ _pain_?” 

And it all returns and for a moment it even feels good because sure, he’s hurting, but at least it’s not aching like it was before. 

But then again his body _is_ on _fire, his mind being scraped with embers and coals, Christy is laughing, lips biting like rebellion, saying “Phoenixes live forever,” body and mind, mind and body, but phoenixes must want to die sometimes too, Christy, Mark, Mark’s face, Mark’s face when Chris realized he was a slave, Mark must know that this hurts but he has no right to hurt me, and he cannot win, I have to practice what I have been preaching, he cannot win, I am not in pain, I am not screaming, stop screaming._

It’s silent all of a sudden, Eduardo is barely aware of it, but it is. He focuses on the pain, on not screaming, pushes his hands against the ground to stop them from quaking. The silence becomes awkward and Eduardo thinks about Christy’s skin, how it tasted salty under his lips…

Mark is saying something. “Stop,” he is saying. Stop what? Eduardo isn’t doing anything, Eduardo is too busy trying not to be human. 

He opens his eyes when he feels hands on his face again, on his mouth, pulling at his jaw, how odd, then on his shoulders, shaking him. They’re intimate, an embrace. It’s harder not to flail when he’s being touched but he knows that if he opens his mouth again he will scream...

“Eduardo,” Mark says and Eduardo listens. “You have to open your mouth. Your tongue is bleeding.”

_He cannot win, cannot win._

“Come on, Eduardo, I don’t know how to make it stop before it stops,” Mark says. “Please.” And Eduardo’s the one on the floor and in pain but Mark is the one begging and that tastes like Christy’s skin under the sun and so he opens his mouth without words amd Mark puts a rag or piece of cloth or something inside but he can’t feel anything except skin against skin.

Then it stops. Eduardo comes to Mark leaning over him. Eduardo is too tired to interpret his expression but it’s weird; blanched with wide eyes and trembling fingers. “Dear god, Eduardo,” he says, and Eduardo tries to hate him again but he has already passed out on the floor.

\-------------

He wakes up to the soft light of a computer screen and a very soft bed. The room is dark and Mark is sitting at a desk in the corner, the light from his laptop illuminating his silhouette.

Eduardo takes stock of himself. He still hurts, legs cramped and arms sore, however, judging by the dullness of the pain he must have been lying here for some time. He rolls on to his back, and starts to sit up.

Mark notices him and turns. “Don’t bother. I don’t think you’ll be able to even move properly for a few more days.” He speaks tonelessly but he can’t seem to make eye contact with Eduardo either.

Eduardo lies back down. His mind feels tired, brain rusty, and not entirely working. Something humiliated and angry in him stirs.

He needs to sit up. Clear his head. He reaches for a pillow, tries to adjust his head, hissing in the process. He vaguely notices Mark coming over, and then the pillow is being moved under his head for him. The way it shifts his neck feels like he’s being decapitated. “ _Porra_ ,” he hisses under his breath.

“Sorry,” Mark says, and Eduardo wishes that the lights in the room were on, that he could analyze Mark’s expression, see how genuine it is. “I didn’t think it would hurt you so much. And then I didn’t know how to make it stop. That wasn’t my intention.”

“Yes,” Eduardo says, and that’s when he notices the soreness in his own mouth. He explores it, tongue tingling with pain. There's something there, a bandage maybe, to stop the bleeding.

They stand in silence for a while and then Mark sits at the end of his bed. He’s facing away from Eduardo. 

“Spanish?” He asks finally.

“What?” _Come on Eduardo, don’t be a child, get your mind out of the gutter, think. You can’t ruin this because of a little misplaced anger._ “Excuse me. What did you say, sir?”

Mark ignores him. “What you said before. It sounded latinate, but not like Italian or French. The accent seemed off, I don’t know. It could be Romanian, I really don’t know much about that language. I was thinking Spanish because I remember from highschool that ‘querida’ means darling.”

Eduardo goes very still. _Querida_? 

“No,” he says after a moment. “It was none of those. Portuguese.” 

“Your native language?”

He nods. The silence continues. 

“When did I say querida, sir?” 

“You kept saying it after you stopped screaming.” 

Everything suddenly hurts a little more. 

“Your family’s Portuguese?”

“Brazilian. We moved to Florida when I was four or five.” _Think about family, think about father’s smile, you didn’t get angry then, did you?_

“What do you say, Eduardo,” Mark says and finally turns to look at him. Thankfully he seems oblivious to Eduardo’s conflict. “You come to the office help with the site? We need translators; we’re trying to expand to South America.”

And then the pain and anger all become worth it, barely noticeable even, and Eduardo is hiding a smile.

“Whatever you would like, Sir.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing and planning this fic back in January and then took a (long) hiatus. I've written the first five chapters, but now I'm at a crossroads: should I continue? I'll post the first few chapters, but please kudos/follow/review if you think it's worth continuing! As cheap a ploy as this sounds, I need some sort of metric to measure my sanity.


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